Decking the halls

Today I came home and barely recognized my own house because it was ablaze and awonder with strings and swags of Christmas lights. Jonathan has spent the last 2 nights after work stringing lights and getting our Yule on! This is the first year we've put lights on the outside of anything like a house...and its kind of a big project. Next year perhaps we'll have a master plan and a big ladder. This year is our beta test - we'll survey the neighbors and see what they think.

We spent last night untangling strands of lights for the tree (we don't have one yet) and unpacking Christmas tree ornaments (we have about 10...so that means we can get a really small tree).

I also found a menorah with an unused box of candles we must have gotten on sale last year. Just in time for the middle of Hanukkah. Last year, I wanted to surprise Jonathan with a beautiful menorah I had found in a shop near our house...luckily I broke down and showed it to him first. Turns out it was just a regular candelabra. I thought there were 12 days of Hanukkah.

I kinda feel like this holiday season has been a lot like opening a box of stuff in the middle of the holidays and trying to find 20 minutes of time to DO something about it. (So far, I've hung stockings by the refrigerator with care. And cut out some great cookie recipes from a magazine.)

And on days I really want to freak myself out, I remember that NEXT YEAR we'll have a crawling baby in the mix. Although, I'm very very excited about Baby K...it can seem daunting during days like these.

So, the holidays are squarely upon us...and I just feel like I'm trying to catch up to the fun part of it all. Isn't it supposed to be fun? Maybe my best approach this year is sneaking in 20 minute holiday fixes? Or maybe its to remember the best parts of Christmas and screw the rest of it? Or maybe its about just celebrating the half of Hanukkah that's left.

Cuteness

Here's a hat I knitted for BabyK this weekend...it took about 2 hours because it's so teeny.



Here are some excellent Panda pajamas from friend JT!!! She's a panda volunteer and has been to China to take care of baby pandas...love these PJs!

The Pods

So, Jonathan is back. And his flight back was also somewhat remarkable...he got to fly...
IN THE POD.

Not familiar with THE POD? Well...its like a mythic land that's IN FRONT of first class. It has seats that slide into full size flat beds complete with sheets and a feather duvet. People can still smoke in that compartment and they light huge cigars with $1000 bills. Champagne flows down the aisles. Its populated by international spies and tycoons. Yes, tycoons.

THAT's the pod.

When he boarded the airplane, he knew he was getting upgraded to a better seat for working the first flight. He figured it'd be one of the La-z-boy seats...couple extra free snacks, but nothing that would completely blow your mind.

He did not expect anything like...the pod.

He spent a lot of time taking pictures of each of the 6 courses he was served for dinner....and documenting how the seat flipped into a bed, and how it had pillows and blankets (I'm usually fighting over a fleece in the back)

Then he was awoken with a fresh mango smoothie.

Now, here's my question...sometimes they can't even scrounge up a ginger ale in Cattle Class, yet, somewhere on the damn plane they have room for a blender for first first first class pod smoothies. (?!?) Revolution, my friends...its time for a revolution.

AND because Jonathan was incredibly impressed with everything in the Pod Zone, the flight staff kept coming by offering him more stuff... fresh danish? another drink? pillow? duvet? snack? a teeny tube of toothpaste?

Totally amazing for a 12-hour flight home.


Meanwhile, yours truly is also growing a pod of her own.
Yes, my pod also serves anything made to order...any time, day or night.
My Pod is slowly making me into a super-sensative smelling organism and a very forgetful machine. The world is very stinky right now, but its okay because i keep forgetting.

And my passenger is about the size of an avocado.

I've been reading that you can start feeling the baby move between 16 - 22 weeks.
So, I'm at 16 weeks and had tried to focus to feel something, but mostly I think it was my own stomach gurgling.

However, the night after Jonathan got home, i woke up in the night and
BAM.

I definitely felt the baby rocking out in his/her Pod.
First first first class, baby!

Hoarders

Okay, so, I watched a really scary show tonight called "Hoarders" about people who are compulsive hoarders. This isn't just letting the mail pile up or having socks on the floor.

Its floor to ceiling trash collected over decades filling room after room. One woman had goats that ate through an exterior wall of her house...and so she shut the door to that room.
Another woman's bathroom had broken, so she'd just go on a piece of paper or a diaper or a rag, then throw it on the floor of the bathroom -- FOR TWO YEARS. It rotted the floor out under her house.

Then I shut it off.

Its not easy to enjoy a nice turkey dinner when you're watching a crew of 10 guys rip out a bathroom doorjam to clean out a non-functioning potty room.
No, turkey dinners deserve more respect.

But its pretty amazing to think of what reality TV has done...I mean, now you can see what life is like for "Little People" or people with 19 kids, or sextuplets, or crazy addictions, or secret lives or just about anything. It's a far cry from Leave It To Beaver.

Is there a medical professional on board?

Wow...Jonathan's flight to NZ wasn't all movies and peanuts...here's the email I got once he landed....
.......

This trip, however, was not uneventful. About 2 hours into the flight a
guy passed out and a flight attendant and I tended to him. He felt
much better after a while and I was released back to my seat.
Then a few hours later a 26 yr old pregnant woman (24 wks, just ahead
of my sweetie) had sudden and severe back and abdominal pains. I was
again summoned to the rear to care for her. When the MDs got there (a
radiologist and a genealogy surgeon from first class) she said the
pain was still there but she was going to tough it out at her seat,
only 2 more hours anyway, and as luck would have it her bro in law
outside of Auckland is an OB GYN.
When I was released again the Flight anttendant (an ex RN), said "if
it's ok with you, I'll just call you if anything else happens, not the
non-emergency trained MDs.
....
Then about 45 min out from Auckland her pain flares up and she passed
out scaring the crap out of her husband. I was summoned again and this
time a nepholigist from Chicago on his honeymoon came to help me. We
did all the stuff, well I did, started an IV and gave her some fluid
and oxygen and all that, and then they put us in the seats at the back
for landing. That MDs leg was tapping like he just had just been shot
at or something. He clearly was not used to the emergency thing either.
Then after landing I have report to the paramedics and they took her
off to the ER. By then her pain was gone (I guess we fixed it) and she
was reluctant to go.
Anyway the staff was super grateful to me and air New Zealand will be
sending a thank you to the house... Keep your eyes open.

..............

Sounds kind of exciting!

Winter wonderland in summer in Auckland

From Jonathan:

Dad's taking a nap and I'm by the POOL! Awesome! Here are the pictures to prove the winter wonderland displays in the stores.
J

New Zealand Bound

Not me. Jonathan.
He's headed for NZ tomorrow for a week with his dad for a whirlwind tour.

And I somehow bought a $5 turkey at Lucky's. (It was only $5!)
I think you can kinda see how this will play out.

Jonathan frolicking beachside, climbing every mountain, splunking every cave.
And me, with a turkey drumstick in each hand watching Mad Men re-runs.

Actually, Jonathan's trip is more "business" - and I saw an itenerary listing "business-like" things -- for example, several 7:15 AM Breakfast Meetings. Several. I can already see he did not know about this itenerary before he bought his ticket.

So he spent an afternoon at the Men's Warehouse getting suited up for this thing. Cause you can't wear a grey tee and jeans to important breakfast business meetings at 7:15 AM.

We spent the evening trying on every combination of shirt, tie, pants, sports jacket to PROVE they all mixed and matched like the sales guy said they would. They did.
For the most part, Men's Warehouse, you have impressed me.

Look out New Zealand! Jonathan is coming to town and he's looking like a million bucks.

Of course, I have sent him with some very important investigation of my own for him to carry out. Specifically: Christmas.

Its summertime in NZ...and its also Christmastime.
That'd be okay in a place like Hawaii where its pretty much the same temperature all year round, but NZ DOES have a wintertime...its just in July. So is it weird to have a winter thing in the middle of the hottest part of the year?

Do they have window displays with fake snow? Do they harvest real Christmas trees? Do they hang stockings by a fire? Do they spray that fake frost on the windows?

Or...is it Christmas, but no one really cares about the roaring fires and frosty nights and cozy mittens....DO CHRISTMAS CAROLS even make SENSE there? Maybe they have their own? I have to know. I asked him to take pictures of what he sees.

In the meantime, I will be getting ready for Christmas and we are having the appropriate weather to celebrate! 45 degrees. Close to freezing when you have single pane windows. Last year we had just moved in and didn't get a tree or anything...but this year my parents will be in town and we're going full-force Christmas!!

The list of what I hope to get done while he is gone is rather ambitious.
And it includes a turkey. But we'll see.


Sheep Show at the Agrodome!